Page 17 of SIN Bone Deep

“We’ll take the Corniche,” Callista draped on her black lace shawl, slid on her sunglasses, and picked up her clutch purse. “Come along then ladies.”

There was no sign of Nova as we left the house. In the garage, we dragged the cover from the Corniche, and I slid into the back before adjusting the front passenger seat for Fennel. Callista pulled on her driving gloves and started the engine. We all held our breaths for a moment as the Corniche was of an age to be temperamental, but the car started, and I sank back against the leather seat as Callista guided it out of the garage.

“Did you resolve the issue of which we spoke the other evening, Nyx?” Fennel asked as we crept down the driveway, the gravel crunching beneath our wheels, navigating the potholes that the last winter had carved out and that we had not had the finance to pay to have refilled. “Your… beau?”

“Ah…” I felt my cheeks heat. “No, not really. It’s still… uncertain.”

“Mhm,” the sisters exchanged a sideways look.

“I am thinking about summoning a demon,” I tried to distract them hastily. “I think that if I’m going to do it before I start at the Academy is the right time, don’t you?”

“Invoking a demon familiar is something very personal,” Callista replied as we descended the hill. “If you decide to proceed, however, Fennel and I are always available to assist you.”

“I miss the smell of sulphur,” Fennel murmured. “Do you remember, Calli? Aggie?”

“How could I forget,” Callista replied tartly. “The old man was always so persistent with his language lessons and making peace between us when we fought.”

Agares had been their grandmother’s demon and had all but raised the sisters. When their grandmother had died, he had disappeared from their life just as suddenly. There was a sense of angry abandonment from all their recollections of him.

“There is a storm coming,” Callista murmured as she paused at the intersection from the beach.

“Hopefully it will wait to break until after the burial,” Fennel replied.

The traffic slowed to a crawl by the long-tailed procession from the church to the cemetery just outside of town. We joined the queue, watching the Corniches’ temperature gauge anxiously as it crawled higher and higher.

“Rain may be a saving grace at this point,” Callista observed wryly. “Cool the old boy down a little.”

“We are lucky that it is not a hot day,” Fennel agreed. “Though those clouds…”

We all looked at the heavy grey rolling in from the direction of the ocean.

“A bit of rain means nothing,” Callista dismissed it, although I was certain that I wasn’t the only witch in the car whose skin was crawling with foreboding. “And luckily there are umbrellas in the boot.”

Many chose to park their cars and walk the rest of the way, and as the dark-clad mourners passed the Corniche, they looked in our windows with expressions that ranged from curiosity to disapproval. I sank down in my seat, trying to be unobtrusive, and did not miss the click of the door lock on Fennel’s side as she pressed it down.

A handsome red-haired young man in a designer suit grinned at me knowingly as he strolled by the car, and I was left feeling uneasy. I did not know him, but the look in his eye told me that he knew me. Or, at least, of me.

“Maybe we should just park…?” I suggested. I was torn between the exposure of walking amongst the townspeople towards the graveyard, and feeling like the Corniche was drawing too much attention.

“Nonsense,” Callista replied. “The traffic is moving.”

Eventually, Callista navigated the funeral procession and in what was probably a well-prepared bit of witchcraft, nabbed an empty car park discretely behind a row of pine trees at the edge of the cemetery. As we got out of the car, the wind picked up, tugging at Fennel’s veil, our skirts, and our hair.

Whilst the aunts fussed in the boot with the umbrellas, I looked across the cemetery in dread. There was a large crowd gathering around the burial site. I could see the parents within a huddle of their family, the mother sobbing into the clutch of a handkerchief. No one had drawn their attention to our presence at the edge of the cemetery – yet. I hoped it stayed that way, and that I was there would pass unnoticed by the parents, and therefore the confrontation that I dreaded would be avoided.

My eyes caught on a flash of red, and I saw the red-haired man leaning nonchalantly in the shadows of one of the trees. He was looking directly at me and grinned with mischievous charm as our eyes met. He was astonishingly eye-catching - good-looking with his shoulder-length dark red hair the perfect frame for his sharp-boned face, but he possessed a charisma and confidence that I could sense even from across the cemetery.

“He is cute,” Callista joined me, her umbrella open and balanced on her shoulder, and her eyes tracking mine to where the young man was. “Is he your mystery man, Elenyx?”

“Oh, no,” I was flustered. “I’ve never seen him before today.”

“Hmm, interesting. They always say, it never rains but it pours,” Callista observed. “Lead the way, Elenyx,” she linked arms with Fennel and prepared to follow.

I deliberately walked towards the young man and his tree, as if I were heading to him, watching his reaction as he straightened in preparation, and then three gravestones from where he stood, I turned my direction heading instead towards the rear of the crowd of mourners.

Callista laughed under her breath. “Perhaps we have been mistaken, Fennel, and it’s Elenyx who will be the heartbreaker of the pair.”

“How unexpected,” Fennel murmured.

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